


CRESCENT: OPEN YOUR EYES

by sparklyhwa



Category: ATEEZ
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Ateez theory, Captain Kim Hongjoong, Complete, F/M, Gen, Getting Back Together, Illusions, Parallel Universes, Past Relationship(s), Romance, Soft Choi San, Soft Song Mingi, Time Travel, masked man theory, who is the masked man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:27:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25144651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklyhwa/pseuds/sparklyhwa
Summary: Hongjoong made his decision and time has already started to turn back.
Relationships: Choi Jongho/Choi San/Jeong Yunho/Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang/Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa/Song Mingi, Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Choi San/Song Mingi, Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang, Jung Wooyoung/Song Mingi, Kim Hongjoong/Everyone, Park Seonghwa/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The man with the black fedora and Hongjoong meet in Answer.

**CRESCENT: THE MAN WITH THE BLACK FEDORA**

White smoke, ashes and dust was all that was left of that place.

Hongjoong barely held back a sneeze and hastily stepped into the empty dining room. Or whatever was left of it.

The once sumptuous white and gold walls were now stained with black halos. All that was left of the magnificent chandelier they had all gawked at the first time they had entered that place, was only a skeleton of bare metal.

He harshly bit down on his lip, as the gleeful expressions of his best friends resurfaced in his mind. Back then their situation was probably way worse than the present, but at least they had been together.

Now, all Hongjoong could do was silently mourn over his own choices and settle for reminiscing about them from time to time. At least he still had his memories.

Even if, considering the decision he had taken, getting lost in his own head wasn’t a good thing. He needed to stay focused and sharp at all times.

Hongjoong sniffed once again and immersed himself in the seemingly empty room. The floor was a mess of broken glasses and burnt pieces of forniture.

It was as if not even a day had passed in that mansion. Looking at the familiar surroundings, he could almost feel the burning hotness of fire on his skin and a vicious sulfur smell penetrate his lungs.

Hongjoong almost retched, but exhaled sharply and scanned the ruined expanse of the room with watchful eyes.

As he neared the somehow still intact opulent dinner table, he almost tripped on his own feet.

A yelp left his mouth as the visor of a black fedora caught in between his white boots, preventing him from taking another step.

“What…” he trailed in an hushed and hardly audible voice.

“Pleased to see that you made it safe and sound. Well ... almost” a muffled voice spoke, immediately catching his attention.

However, Hongjoong kept his head low and just kicked that damn hat away from his feet, slowly adverting his eyes from the ground and finally on the masked man that stood at the other end of the table.

He scoffed at the humorous tone in his voice and cockily clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth. The man had clearly casted a look down at his hand, wrapped in blood stained bandages.

Hongjoong pressed his lips together in a firm line, “Does this belong to one of your men? I thought you did a cleaner job than this” he mocked, teasing the fedora with the tip of his boot.

If the masked man felt annoyed by his words, he was a good enough actor not to let it show too much. Hongjoong could only catch a quick glimpse of resentment and irritation in his cat-like eyes. The huge black mask perfectly covered his face and buried any hint of emotion behind all that black leather.

“If this place is a mess it’s not because of us. Plus, we’re all in good conditions” he promptly bit back.

Hongjoong had to strain his breath and do his best not to curse him out loud. Just thinking about him mentioning his friends had his whole chest burning up with anger.

“Let’s get to the point. I didn’t agree to meet you to chat over some coffee” he curtly said, grabbing the backrest of the only ornamental chair still intact on his side of the table.

The masked man barked out a bitter laugh and replicated his movements, making a show of his elegant ways while sitting down.

Hongjoong had to force himself not to dig his fingernails in the skin of his palms because of irritation and further damage his hand.

How could people look so much alike, but be so different at heart?

“Glad to see that we at least agree on this one matter, but I must remind you that I was the one to grant you this meeting” the masked man muttered.

“After all, I’m the only one in this room that can bend and play with dimensions. You can only travel through them. And horribly at that” he said, smug.

As he looking down at his chest pocket, his thick eyebrows furrowed in concentration, the masked man blatantly ignored the way Hongjoong had started to grumble to himself.

Dipping his gloved hand inside his long trench coat, he lastly fishing out the hourglass.

As soon as the glass met the cold surface of the table, the stale air of the room seemed to freeze and the crips light that it always emanated intensified, painting the man’s feature with deep bluish and greenish shades. An _aurora_ of colors that had Hongjoong trembling, memories once again catching up with him.

“It already started” he then pointed out, looking directly at the constant stream of sand inside of the hourglass.

“As we had already agreed” the man said, voice impossibly low and hushed. He was clearly judging him.

“Don’t ever give me that condescending look” Hongjoong spit out. “There was no other way for us. I had not other choice”.

The man scoffed and crossed his arms on his chest, comfortably leaning back against the chair.

“That’s what you tell yourself not to go crazy, but you must remember that _it’s not the reality that made you lose your dream_. In the end _it was your decision_ and yours only”.

Hongjoong rolled his eyes in order to keep the tears at bay and said nothing.

“What if it’s just an _illusion_ and all that I did to protect them was useless? What if the white man is going to find them even in that unknown dimension? I bet these questions are killing you” he kept going, only to suddenly drop his smirk and recover his dead serious expression.

Hongjoong was now fuming, hands gripping the chair’s armrests impossibly tight, blood dripping from his right hand and onto the dusty floor.

“Don’t… you don’t know anything” he started, tone menacingly rough, but the masked man was quick to interrupt him.

“Oh, but I know it all. You seriously believe that we don’t keep an eye on the dimensions? On all of you?” He sneered.

“How stupid must you be to think that? To believe that I don’t know that you still hide and search in _Wonderland_ , with your grown out blue hair and those cheap white boots”.

As a reflex, Hongjoong sighed and carded his left hand in between the freshly dyed azure strands. “There’s nothing left in Wonderland, anyway. Nobody would notice the change” he muttered.

“He notices everything. He knows everything. Or at least, as much as I know”.

The masked man took Hongjoong’s silence as a small victory and teasingly tapped on the hourglass. The sand did not budge and kept going up, flowing _backwards_. Gravity seemed not to apply inside of it.

“That’s way I’m doing this. The white masked man can’t follow me if he doesn’t know that we have an alliance and that you’re helping me travel back in time” Hongjoong confessed after letting out the deepest sigh.

The masked man felt the tip of his tongue prickle with the need to tease him for that sudden show of weakness, but only looked out of the fallen out window and adjusted the black fedora on his high forehead.

“The process has already started” the masked man stated once again.

“By now your crew should’ve started to feel the change. Let’s settle this once and for all. You have to decide if you want to bring them all with you or go by yourself, even if you still don’t have the _Answer_ ”.

Hongjoong sighed yet again and bit the inside of his cheek with force, trying to wake himself up from that moment of numbness.

Of course he was going to risk his life and fix the past on his own if he could. But, as the black masked man had said, he was not the one with the most important piece knowledge. They were a team and needed all of them.

“Let’s wake them up”.


	2. CRESCENT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> San is sick of his life.   
> When the moving car stopped for a moment, he jumped out of the car.

**SAN’S RESOLUTION**

San had purposefully left the window on his side of the car slightly open and now the winter’s freezing cold air was seeping through it and ruffling up his perfectly styled dark hair.

He felt the corner of his mouth rise in a smile as his lungs filled almost painfully with oxygen. The frail drag of coldness felt nice and sharp enough in order to effectively wake him up from the morning’s numbness.

He had been suffering from a major headache since the early hours. His head had been pounding so painfully that his eyes were constantly filled with unshed tears.

Even though he had tried his best to keep it under control, in the end, he forced himself to be rational and call his mother. She had picked him up with a disappointed frown and a shivering cold edge to her eyes.

“You could’ve waited till the end of your lessons” she kept murmuring under her breath, while obsessively checking the time on her new silver wrist-watch. That was worth at least a month of his salary at the coffee shop.

San groaned in pain as another wave sickness hit him.

There was no way he could have waited another two hours in that giant college classroom full of people. Around his second period his migraine had gotten so bad that San believed to be hallucinating: flashes of weird dreams, dimensions on fire, faces of people that felt so familiar that yet he didn’t know, rooms of those same people dancing and playing around.

“San close the window, we’re in the middle of November! And please fix your face and your hair, you look like that poor kid next door”.

As his mother’s crisp voice broke the comfortable silence they had been immersed in, San roughly bit down on his thin bottom lip and barely held back both a groan and a curse.

Everyday, he asked himself how longer he could put up with his mother badmouthing each and every one of his friends. He felt like one day or another he was just going to flip out.

Although he was dying to talk back, tell her that the family she always judged so harshly was struggling just like theirs did back in _Namhae,_ San kept quiet.

He simply let his head drop against the seat’s headrest with a dull thud and firmly closed himself in his reticence, barely shooting her a condescending look through the rearview mirror.

Her annoyingly serious expression was enough to have him feel even sicker. It was all translucent powder and wrinkles hidden under layers of foundation and anti-aging creams. She especially spent a lot of their earnings on those, since “ _clothes DO make the man_ ”.

Taking a particularly deep breath, he placed the tip of his middle finger on the button that would close the window but did nothing to actually press down on it and obey his mother’s instructions.

Instead, he scraped his bitten down nail against the plastic surface and nervously rocked his leg up and down.

And just then, shifting his unfocused gaze between the neighborhood outside and his own curled up body, he saw the faint outline of a thick bracelet starting to form on his right wrist.

“San, close the window right now. And how many times do I have to remind you to keep that tic under control? This is getting very tiresome”.

With his eyes wide open in shock and confusion, now definitely fixed on the busy street of _Donggyo-dong_ fully saturated with the morning’s icy light and the dark grey fumes of the car racing by, San resumed to anxiously rack his front teeth over his already tender bottom lip.

It kind of hurt at this point, considering that the older wounds hadn’t completely healed yet, but the stinging pain felt like the only thing keeping him with his head still fixed right on his shoulders.

What was happening to him?

Sometimes he felt himself float away, getting lost in the spiral of his own concerns.

His own thoughts were consuming him, fragments of what he only thought were dreams kept bouncing in between the crumbling walls of his mind.

San wanted out.

He wanted out of the car, out the house, out of his life.

Because even if he had been concealing his distress fairly well, showing his usually smily self, even in between all the school assignments, his part-time job at the cafe and most importantly his mother’s perfectionist manias, the truth was that _San was sick of his life._

So, in the heat of the moment, he finally listened to his anxiety and to those _illusions_ and “Stop the car” he said.

His mother hardly lifted her chocolate brown eyes from the road ahead and instead only cleared her throat in a non-explicit but very strict reprimand.

The way that curt humming had sounded, just as cold and violent as the freezing cold air, had the corners of his mouth drop down and his chin start to tremble.

“Stop the car, I’m really not feeling well” he barely managed to utter in between the silent sobs that had started to shake his chest.

Now that same chill that every breath took with itself didn’t feel as nice anymore. It seemed more like he was constantly being stabbed.

His reality was collapsing right in front of his own eyes.

San tried his best to keep his voice monotoned and steady, but it sounded broken even to his own muffled ears.

However, that exact edge to his tone had been enough to have his mother look at him through the rearview mirror and finally stop the car.

“What’s wrong? I told you to close that window, it’s flu season! If you just had listened to me…” she had turned around and was now looking at him from above the hood of her padded coat, sharp eyes directly on him and raking his shivering body up and down.

But San had already squeezed both his palms around the car door’s handle and was frantically pushing it open.

“Where do you think you’re going? Do you also feel like suddenly throwing up now?” She screamed more than asked, ready to park the car and dash to the backseat to attend to his son.

But before she could even unfasten her seatbelt, San was already out of the door.

With his feet both planted on the ground and only his blue hoodie to protect his thin limbs from the unforgiving temperatures of Korean’s winter season, he barely turned around to look at his mother’s dismayed expression.

Ignoring her piercing voice, that had now upgraded into a continued shrilly wail, San banged the door closed and, one step after the other, he sprinted down the road.

As he left his mother’s side, letting himself drown in the chaos of the city life in its _aurora_ ’s time, not one tear slid down his face.

Maybe because it was just too cold and every drop of regret had froze right at the levee of his eyes. Maybe he was just to appalled to react in any way.

What he had just done would’ve resulted in a serious whipping if he would’ve had even the slimmer intention of going back home, but that was not the case at all.

That _dimension_ wasn’t his home anyway and he had no time now that he had finally woken up.

Now that _the moving car had stopped for a moment and he had jumped off_ , he needed to find Mingi first.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mingi’s diary: living without dreaming is a normal thing for a guy like me. Dreams are too lavish for the poor.
> 
> Wooyoung’s choice: I gave up on the easy way out to be with my friends. But we’re wrong. I’m only going to think about one thing now.

**MINGI’S DIARY - WOOYOUNG’S CHOICE**

“Close the window, it’s cold!” Wooyoung whined in his usual high-pitched voice.

He was huddled up in a long dark blue coat and had his forehead pressed against the full size mirror they had placed against the furthest wall of their hideout, an empty warehouse in the outskirts of Seoul.

It was kind of far from Mingi’s neighborhood, but he mostly slept on the brown leather couch that Wooyoung’s father had lent them.

He basically lived there now, considering that he preferred letting his mother and brother use the only bed in their flat.

He sighed heavily and walked towards said open window, shooting a pondering look to the closed entrance door.

“Are we expecting someone?” Wooyoung mumbled, eyes closed and arms crossed over hispadded chest. Sniffling “You’ve been looking at the door for a while now” he added.

He looked sick.

“No, but I just have a feeling someone will show up sooner than we think” Mingi murmured, casually glancing down at his friend’s right wrist.

Upon noticing the thick leather bracelet secured around it his breath got suddenly caught in his throat, coming out in a rough series of coughs.

That finally had Wooyoung’s eyes shooting open.

“Are you okay? What did you say?” He asked, walking towards him.

“No, I’m fine. I was just … it’s nothing” he said, forcing a smile.

Wooyoung curled his lips in a pout and carelessly shrugged his shoulders. Then, anticipating Mingi, he balanced his weight on one foot and bent forward in order to close the window.

“Wanna grab some lunch?” Wooyoung offered, energetically rubbing his hands together in order to heat them up.

The winter season in Korea was always very cold, whipped by strong winds and approaching ridiculously low temperatures at any time of the day, but Wooyoung was literally freezing.

His hands had turned purple, whereas Mingi was only in a sweater and didn’t look bothered at all.

“Later” he mumbled, letting out a heavy sigh and letting himself drop down on the couch. Eyes fixed on the front door.

He had been feeling restless for a while, especially since his memories of _them_ were becoming clearer.

His eyes had been _open_ for the longest time, but he had never felt this way before.

It was as if the veil of _illusion_ was slowly lifting, his present and past mixing together. Maybe was the reason why the spectrum of his emotions had become a mess over the past few days.

His family’s miserable situation in that dimension, the constant feeling of not being brave or smart enough to keep up with the consequences of the choices he had made, in a past much distant from that reality, everything was killing him.

But _living without dreaming was a normal thing for a guy like him._

 _Dreams are too lavish for the poor_ and Mingi definitely felt like he had nothing left to hang on.

He had been awake all along, aware of things that his friends didn’t know and that he couldn’t tell them.

He was the one with the _answer,_ but now that what he had suspected all along was actually happening, Mingi still had no idea of what to do. He should’ve been prepared for this.

“You’re scaring me, are you sure you’re fine? I really think you should eat something” Wooyoung said, bringing him back from his useless wanderings. There was nothing he could do if Hongjoong had already made his decision, anyway.

“Have you been seeing a lot of butterflies recently? Say, over the past two days?” Mingi suddenly asked, gripping his friend’s biceps with the wide palms of his trembling hands.

“What? Mingi, I think you’re running a _fever_ ” Wooyoung sighed, rising his right hand in order to check his temperature.

“I’m not the one with a fever here. Answer me, have you been seeing butterflies? Or have you been feeling hot one moment and like you could freeze the other?”.

“I… don’t understand what you’re saying”.

Mingi groaned, slightly annoyed by the useless show of his poor acting skills and instead caught Wooyoung’s thin wrist in between his long fingers.

“Do you know what this is?” He rhetorically asked, hinting at the leather tightly strapped around his skin. Of course he knew.

If the way Wooyoung’s eyes had widened and the quickness with which he retrieved his arm were anything to go by, Mingi was sure Wooyoung was awake.

Since when? That he couldn’t know, but despite the confused expression that the other had desperately tried to fake, he was sure that it had been at least a few hours.

“You look like you know what I’m talking about. So I’ll take that as a yes”.

Mingi loudly gulped down and removed his hands from the shoulders of a clearly startled Wooyoung, that was now silently looking outside of the closed window.

“We have to find everyone else” Mingi started, gaze unwavering and focused on that damn door. Someone was bound to enter, his gut never lied.

“Do you know any of our members in this dimension other than me?”.

Wooyoung muttered something under his breath and shook his head no, but it was clearly another lie. Mingi was getting tired of this.

“Can you please cooperate? After all I did for you in _Wonderland…”_ he had only whispered that last sentence, but it was loud enough for Wooyoung to catch on and exhale loudly. Now he looked annoyed.

“Don’t bring up that past ever again” he coldly warned, lowering the sleeve of his coat with an harsh tug in order to hide his bracelet.

“I feel like I have too, if it’s the only way to get something out of you. After all, we’re going to go back to an even remoter past”.

“What?” Wooyoung barked, now genuinely confused.

Mingi smirked in a smug fashion and lightly scoffed through his nose.

“Why do you think you have that back on your wrist if you, San and Yeosang threw them out after leaving _Answer_? Hongjoong’s coming to get us”.

Wooyoung looked on the verge of an anger attack, with the apples of his cheeks suddenly scorching hot and something like a flame shining in his dark eyes.

Mingi shivered, as the memory of a much different Wooyoung playing with matches, unexpectedly peeped in his mind.

“ _I gave up on the easy way out to be with you guys. But we’re wrong!_ We were at fault all along! _So I promised to myself that I was only going to think about one thing now._ I don’t trust easily” he seethed through clenched teeth.

Mingi’s mouth gaped for a couple of seconds, trying to figure out something to say, but before any of them could keep the argument going, the entrance door finally bursted open, revealing the panting figure of a trembling San.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seonghwa’s memory: Everyone left, but only her scent remains. No name or address to be known. As if I was dreaming within my own dream, it all faded away.
> 
> Jongho’s wanderings: I was too young to know how to reach out to my lost friend. Where am I now, where should I go?

**SEONGHWA’S MEMORY - JONGHO’S WANDERINGS**

Seonghwa’s eyes were only half-open and his head was pounding with a scarily painful intensity.

It had been more than five hours now, since his already dazed mind had started to spiral into utter chaos.

His thoughts were nothing but a heap of nonsensical words, mixed images and feelings.

He had been trying to make something out of his hazy state for the entirety of that afternoon, but nothing had worked in the end.

He had taken painkillers and tried to sleep it off as well, but he ultimately found himself wandering around the backyard of his old high school.

It was now a little after five and the sky had painted itself with the warmest shades of pink and orange.

Seonghwa curled his hands around the sleeves of his mustard colored pullover and slid them in the front pockets of his black jeans.

It was almost ironic, how oxymoronic his situation was.

If he looked up at the cloudy expanse of the sky, beyond the curtain of his light brown fringe, the world looked so temperate and peaceful. However, the moment he adverted his eyes on the frosty sidewalk he was walking on, his body felt as stiff and motionless as a piece of ice.

Seonghwa felt like a paradox. More like a laughable creature than a human being.

He had no idea of what was happening inside his mind and had absolutely no control over his own feelings.

Not after she had left.

The twinge of pain that came with her face, so vivid among the loud turmoil of his thoughts, had him sitting down in an instant.

Luckily he was near the school’s courtyard, where endless rows of fences and railings to sit on could easily be found.

And for the first time after a long while, Seonghwa let himself take a breath and think about her.

He had been scolding himself, over the last weeks, cursing his naiveness every time that her name came up in his mind. He couldn’t believe he had let himself fall for a liar.

He had tried to deny his feelings with such intensity that in the end, he had almost convinced himself that he was totally fine and that she had been only an _illusion_.

_But then everyone had left and only her scent had remained_

Seonghwa had sheltered his hurt heart in his own loneliness and that had almost driven him crazy.

What was real and what was not?

She hadn’t left anything behind, _no name or address to be known_. _As if_ Seonghwa _had dreamed within his own dream_.

Now that he knew that what she had told him about herself was only a lie, if felt like _it all had faded away_.

His love and himself as well.

Seonghwa bit down on his plump bottom lip and raised a hand to his face, wiping down that one tear that had escaped his strict self-control.

It wasn’t worth it, he kept telling himself. He couldn’t waste his already low energies on someone that didn’t even exist in the first place.

He sighed heavily and got up from the fence, wiping down the back of his pants with one hand.

However, he had to stop for a moment before walking back home. There was something poking his behind.

Seonghwa frowned and dipped his hand in his back pocket, ultimately fishing out a wide-link silver necklace.

Hongjoong’s necklace.

That exact moment every once of pain left his body and his mind cleared out of every chaotic reasoning. And, ultimately, what he only thought to be delusions became coherent memories.

They weren’t delusions, he had lived through each and every one of those crazy scenarios, felt the _soaring winds_ dishevel his hair, the _waves_ crash against his body, the heat of the fire swallow him whole.

Seonghwa felt his heart skip a beat, only to start beating ten times faster.

He was now awake and also had a faint idea of why Hongjoong’s necklace was back in his pocket. He was sure he had discarded it elsewhere, right before leaving _Answer_ ’s dimension.

For some reason he hadn’t figured out quite yet, _everything was going back to its original place_.

Suddenly, the heavy booming sound of a basketball singled out everything else. All Seonghwa could think about now was light-washed skinny jeans, the sound of waves crashing against the shore in the distance, the sound of laughing, a skating park and Jongho playing with a heavy orange ball.

Seonghwa quickly scanned his surroundings and sprinted towards the basketball courts, necklace still tight in the sweaty palm of his hand.

Spotting Jongho was not hard at all, even though his red jacket almost blended in with the sky’s colors, that were getting more intense by the minute. The night was approaching and they didn’t have much time.

He had opened his eyes too late.

“Jongho!” He called, sprinting across the two halves of the field in order to stand right in front of him, that sitting down on the a rusty metal bench by the sidelines.

His youngest friend looked up at him with glassy eyes, bottom lip quivering dangerously and fingertips harshly pressed around a basket ball.

The pressure he was applying to it, probably in order to keep himself in check, looked enough to dig a whole through the plastic.

“What is happening?” He whispered, frantically looking around with his eyebrows furrowed.

“ _Where am I now, where should I go?_ ” He cried in the end, letting himself go to a pain that was obviously bigger than himself.

Seonghwa exhaled sharply, in relief, and sat down next to him.

Taking the ball from his hands and placing it on the ground, he searched his dark eyes with his own and “I don’t know” he confessed.

“I just woke up” he kept going, showing the younger the necklace in his hand. The material had dug a cleft in the skin of his palm.

Jongho’s eyes shot open, immediately recognizing the piece of jewelry.

“Why do you have that? I though you had thrown it out when Hongjoong left usand disappeared”.

Seonghwa slowly shook his head at his words.

“He didn’t leave us, but it’s not your fault that you think this way. He made a decision as our leader, to leave us in this unknown universe to keep us safe from the white masked man. Some of us understood, I’m sure some of us still disagree. Anyway, it’s our wrong doing, that we didn’t explain anything to you”.

Jongho nodded along to his words but didn’t look at peace, not at all. Instead, his frown had deepened.

“All this time, I’ve been waiting for someone at the bus stop, been running around to find them. But I was alone without my memories and didn’t even know who it was that I was searching for”.

Seonghwa patted his back, still silent. He knew very well how unconsolable that type of pain was. To feel insecure, lost, empty like a _zero_.

“ _I know I’m too young_ to understand his choice, _too young to know how to reach out to my lost friend_ , but I still can’t help but blame myself” Jongho sobbed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yunho and His Brother: It started with you, but it’s also my dream now. But without my brother, there’s no meaning to this dream. What am I supposed to do if you disappear?
> 
> Yeosang’s time: Adults said. Look up at the starts in the night sky. But, the stars did not shine in the night sky that I was looking at and I continued to walk looking down on the ground.

**YUNHO’S AND HIS BROTHER - YEOSANG’S TIME**

Yunho has awakened with the sound of a notification coming from his phone. He had grabbed the towel dangling from the back of the only chair in the dance studio and used it to quickly dry every drop of sweat that had collected at the base of his neck and along his sideburns.

Then, only after gulping down half of his water bottle, he checked the new text message.

At the sight of Hongjoong’s name displayed on the screen, his throat had suddenly closed and the water had stopped in a very awkward position, making him splutter out the clear liquid all over his white t-shirt and the floor.

He had quickly adverted his gaze from the screen of his phone and spared a void look at his own reflection.

The sight of his sweaty and reddened face was enough to snap him back to reality.

Luckily this time, it had been quicker and painless. Even if the way his memories from all the dimensions he had visited had rushed back in his mind at an incredibly fast speed.

He felt dizzy for a good minute, in which he quietly let his mind put everything back in place.

He thought he was fine but just then, a powerful shiver took over his whole body and Yunho suddenly dropped down on the floor, back arched and eyes wet with unshed tears.

He felt like throwing up but nothing was coming out from his mouth, if not sobs and loud wails.

And then it was finally over. Only now that even the worst of memories had come back to him, even if _they weren’t all his own._

“Why are you so late?” The text said, followed by a number of emojis of a red and angry face. Yunho snorted and picked himself up. Typical Hongjoong.

But when he checked the delivery date, his smirk dropped and a wave of anxiousness almost made him sick again.

It was from about a year earlier, on that same day and time of the day: “The seventeenth of November” he muttered, now officially alarmed.

“Eleven seventeen” he kept whispering to himself, like a mantra.

Yunho was quick to mindlessly discard the towel on the floor and sprint out of the door and into the cold night air.

He had only given himself the time to put a light blue jacket on, but the freezing temperature was the last of his problems right at that moment.

He carelessly run across the familiar streets of _Donggyo-dong_ , leaving loud protests and annoyed strangers behind. But nothing mattered, not if his suspects were right.

Especially not now that he had received a text message from someone that he never had as a saved contact on his phone. Someone that didn’t even exist in that universe.

Yunho took a deep breath and quickly scanned his surroundings, trying to make sense of what was happening and what he was supposed to do.

If that text was anything to go by, someone was definitely going to be waiting for him in the place they always used to meet: their shared flat.

With a new found destination, Yunho quickened his pace and mindlessly crossed the road, careless of the red light shining above his head in a silent warning and of the cars honking at him.

What was he supposed to do other than run?

Hongjoong would’ve probably scolded him and reprimanded his recklessness, because what if that text was nothing but a scam?

What if despite the leader’s efforts the white masked man had found a way to find them even in that unknown dimension?

Yunho could’t be sure of that, but he had a feeling this was something else.

His gut told him that it really was his friend, someone as close to him as an older brother.

 _It all had started with him_ for Yunho. He had let himself be carried away by Hongjoong’s passion _, and it was also his dream now._ _But without his brother, there was no meaning to that dream. What was he supposed to do if he disappeared?_

And what was he supposed to do now that he had found him again? He gulped down his fear and ran.

His heart had been beating insanely loud for the past few minutes, even if he had never stopped dancing and had a very good lung capacity. Yunho felt unusually tired, but he didn’t even dream of stopping if not once at the threshold of their dorm.

He had been wandering if everything in that dimension was the same, if someone else lived there or if he would meet with one of the others.

But before he could drag his thinking any further, reality claimed him back and made him stop dead on his tracks.

He had met not only one of them, but three.

In fact, on the other side of the road, now only a few blocks away from their old apartment, Yeosang was clearly arguing with both Wooyoung and San.

Yunho harshly sucked on his bottom lip and brought both hands towards his face, combing back his messy black hair. Seeing them together had brought back a recent memory, made of steel and ashes, what was left of a room that had caught fire.

Yunho shook the thought out of his head and silently neared the trio, trying his best not to let himself be seen.

Everyone looked awake except for Yeosang, who was trying to avoid being stopped by the other two.

With his head casted down, towards the cold concrete, he was straight-up ignoring Wooyoung’s pleads.

Yunho’s chest strained as the younger0s broken voice became clearer. He was now on the same path as them, only a few strides away.

San was weirdly quiet and only looked at Yeosang with a sad frown on his face. The white streak he used to have in his hair was gone and so it seemed all his energies.

Yunho took a deep breath and clenched his hands around his phone. He was sure that San had remembered everything if he was with Wooyoung now, but he guessed he still didn’t understand why the bracelet was back on his right wrist. Why it had come back to all of them.

“Can you please look at me? Yeosang!” Wooyoung screamed, harshly gripping his arms in order to shake him awake.

“Get your hands off me! And back off! Both of you” he bit back, shaking off Wooyoung’s hands from his shoulders.

“How can you still have the _fever_? How can you not have opened your eyes yet?” San murmured, with the weakest voice Yunho had heard him use.

 _“_ I am awake” Yeosang confessed with a deep sigh, causing everyone to hold their breath. Yunho included, even if he was far from the center of the action.

“My eyes are open” he added, rubbing his wrist where the thick leather of his bracelet was.

Wooyoung exhaled harshly and enclosed his best friend in a bone-crushing hug “Why won’t you look at us then?”.

Yeosang patted his back twice, then lifted his gaze and fixed on something behind San’s shoulders, he was looking directly at Yunho.

Then,” _Adults said to look up at the starts in the night sky. But, the stars did not shine in the night sky that I was looking at and I continued to walk looking down on the ground._ I tried to find you for the longest time but couldn’t and now that you’re right here, in front of me, I still fear it’s all part of another _illusion_ ” he confessed.

That pushed Yunho to keep going.

He took a couple of wide strides and finally stood before them.

“It’s not” he reassured them.

At that moment San got a text. He quickly checked it and “I think we’re all awake now. Mingi said he found Seonghwa and Jongho together” he announced, lifting the corner of his mouth in a small smile.

At that point the tension in Yeosang’s shoulder seemed to dissolve completely. He nodded almost solemnly and “So what do we do now?” He inquired.

At that moment, Yunho promptly showed them the text on his phone and smiled.

“Nothing. Hongjoong’s bringing us _back_ ”.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The man with the black fedora said "there are countless dimensions in the world".  
> When Hongjoong opened his eyes, it was a dream.  
> Next to him was an hourglass he saw for the first time,  
> the sand in the hourglass began to flow back from bottom to top.

**HONGJOONG’S DREAM**

Hongjoong didn’t remember the leather couch of the _Hala Hala_ warehouse to be that uncomfortable.

As he slowly blinked his eyes open, he felt his head spin dangerously fast. He groaned in distress and stretched his neck, feeling his bones pop back in place with a sickening crack.

“How long have I been sleeping?” He murmured to himself, scratching one of his eyes with his knuckles. 

“Not for long, about a day? Did you like your beauty sleep?” A familiar voice said, tone dripping with unveiled irony.

Hongjoong sighed heavily and opened his mouth to shoot back at the masked man that stood in front of him.

“Who are you? How did you find me? What do you want?” He asked, retreatingon the couch and pushing his back against the stiff cushions.

“I should be the one asking the questions here. You’re in my warehouse”.

The man with the black fedora hat snickered to himself for a short moment and said nothing else, giving him no clear answer. Instead, in a smooth motion, he simply brought forwards the hand that he kept hidden behind his back.

Hongjoong’s eyebrows shot up as _a luminescent hourglass he saw for the first time_ made itself known before his widened eyes. 

“What? What does it mean?” He mumbled, carefully watching as the man placed the object on the coffee table placed in front of the couch.

His breath hitched, as soon as he noticed t _he send in the hourglass beginning to flow back from top to bottom_.

“Don’t you remember our dream? _There are countless dimensions in the world_ ” _the man with the black fedora said_ , a smugness clearly present in his tone of voice.

Hongjoong suddenly felt like punching him square in the face.

“Who are you?” he seethed, slowly sitting up on the couch, ready to pounce at the masked man at any moment. He didn’t like being played with.

“You’re really noisy when you’re not in control of the situation, do you know that?” The stranger said before slowly lifting his head.

“But I guess I’m the same, aren’t I?” He chuckled, looking straight at Hongjoong’s face, only to reveal a set of identical eyes.


End file.
